there appears to be no shortage of ingenious ways that InDesign users can make life difficult for themselves. here’s a cracker…

sometimes you need to indent a paragraph to accommodate a graphic, or a drop cap, or whatever. like this :

this is the way NOT to do it. not only is it time consuming to set up — it’s a pain in the bollocks if you need to edit the text later :

here’s one correct way to do it — set the left indent to the same as the tab and set the first line indent to its equivalent negative :

the only drawback of that method is that if you decide to change the tab later on, you also have to remember to change the two indents to match.

the other method is the best of all worlds — easy to set up and easy to edit :

the indent to here character looks a bit like a sword (or a cross, if you prefer). place the character in the position where you want your paragraph to align to by using command-\. now if you decide to change the tab, the rest of the paragraph moves automatically.

if you think placing a whole bunch of those little doovies in a whole bunch of paragraphs is too time-consuming, then you really should revisit tip #15.

try it — you’ll like it.